The second section of McLaren’sThe Secret Message of Jesus is called “Engagement: Grappling with the Meaning of Jesus’s Message.”
In chapter six, McLaren gives a brief introduction to the parables, which he calls the medium of Jesus’s message. He writes, “Human kingdoms advance by force and violence with falling bombs and flying bullets, but God’s kingdom advances by stories, fictions, tales that are easily ignored and easily misunderstood. Perhaps that is the only way it can be.”
In chapter seven, he talks about Jesus’s miraces and how they are a demonstration of his kingdom message. He writes, “In fact, this is in large part what I believe the signs and wonders of Jesus are secretly telling us: that God, the good king, is present–working from the inside. The king is in the kingdom, and the kingdom is among us here and now–for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The king is present in the mess and chaos of everyday life on earth . . . bringing healing, sight, perception, liberation, wholeness, wholesomeness, movement, health, fullness, nourishment, sanity, and balance. The incursion of the kingdom of God has begun.”
In chapter eight, McLaren reflects on Jesus’s confrontations with evil powers. He sums it up by saying, “For Jesus’s secret message of the kingdom to be realized, it must first expose the evil of all alternative kingdoms or regimes or systems or idealogies. And for that evil to be exposed, it must be drawn out of the shadows, where it hides in secret.” He follows Wink in discussing the nature of corporate and cosmic evil that manifests itself in the institutions of government, political movements, religious structures and hierarchies, professions, and family systems.
He finishes the chapter with a thought or two about how the cross is the ultimate confrontation with evil in a paradoxical sort of way that is befitting of Jesus’s message of the kingdom. He writes, “What if the only way for the kingdom of God to come in its true form–as a kingdom “not of this world”–is through weakness and vulnerability and sacrifice and love? What if it can only conquer by first being conquered? What if being conquered is absolutely necessary to expose the brutal violence and dark oppression of these principalities and powers, these human idealogies and counterkingdoms–so they, having been exposed, can be seen for what they are and freely rejected, making room for the new and better kingdom? What if the kingdom of God must in these ways fail in order to succeed?” I’m a big fan of Wink’s stuff, so I really enjoyed this chapter.
More later.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
I haven’t had a chance to read any of McLaren’s stuff yet, but would like to in the near future. Thanks for the summary.
Okay, now I feel like you’re just rubbing in the fact that you’ve got a copy of this book I want to read. 🙂
I have just started reading your blog and enjoy it. You mentioned a person by the name of Wink and that you liked his stuff. Who is he and do you have a link?
Johnny–I’m thinking of Walter Wink’s “The Powers that Be” primarily. Very good, very challenging read.
This last chapter also sounds like Rene Girard’s “Scapegoat” understanding of the life and message of Jesus. I’m wonder if McLaren sourced Girard at all.
Would like to read McLaren’s new book. We think JeSus’ secret message is simply this: He did whatever was the Will of His Father in Heaven. Unless we follow His Perfect Pattern we continue to commit the Original Sin, to Partake of the Tree of KNowledge of Good and Evil, which is simply to think that we know best what to do on our own guidance and intellect. We cannot. He sees Time as all One, iinto the hearts of men, and has the Reason of Things. When deception is the name of the game in our world, and when our world is so complicated, how can we know best what to do unless Our Father in Heaven lets us know.
So, we must keep our own counsel with Him, as He told us to do, by seeking after understanding and His guidance daily, by dying to our personal lives and what we think we want. That is the nature of the Beast in all of us, 666, the 666th chapter of the Bible, which is all about vanity. What we do outside of His guidance is done in our vanity and is for naught.
Go with God!
Jenny Miner for Delamer Duverus